Harp String
by infraredphaeton
Summary: She dies and wakes up in the Naruto verse. Blah, blah, blah. But this time, it's not Naruto who's getting a surrogate big sister. She's always thought Sakura could use a little guidance, and she's just the one to help.
1. Chapter 1

The details of how I died are boring. You've heard them before, probably. I was shot, or hit by a car, maybe I had a degenerative disease or I drowned or was murdered. Maybe I was heroic, I died saving a little old lady or a baby or my best friend. Maybe I can't remember how I died, and it will be some tragic, horrible thing that will come up later. Anyway, it happened, and I died. As my father always said, life happens, and then you die. Everyone does it, so there's no point in worrying. Just enjoy the life you have until it's done. My other father, the new one, he used to say something fairly similar. My name was once Sophia, but in this life, I'm Umikai Kotone.

I was born to a loving couple- my father was a chuunin- an Academy instructor, and my mother was a T&I jounin. Her assignments, although they were mostly within the village, could take days, so I spent most of the time with my father. He had dark green hair, like mine, and bright blue eyes which I didn't inherit. Instead, I got my mother's Yuuhi eyes, dark red, and her general looks- my hair was wild, with many cowlicks, and I was pale, not tanned like my father, although I inherited his pointed chin and thin lips. As a baby, I was precocious and bad tempered, and my father soon found out that reading stories or singing to me was the only way to calm me down- the more complex the better. I went from being twenty two and studying at university to being a baby, and despite my father's best attempts, I was bored to tears. Bored to the point of screaming, sometimes, and in the years that came after, I felt a deep gratitude to him for his patience with my tinny, annoying shouts.

It was my father who noticed how smart I was, even if that supposed intelligence came from the advantage of being around twenty one years ahead, mentally, and taught me how to read. Or so he thought- I was majoring in linguistics, the study of languages, and already knew six languages by the time of my death, including Japanese. The small difference between the language used in the elemental countries and the one used in Japan was hardly noticeable, so I picked it up at a speed that most would call father had kind eyes, but I think I unnerved him a little. I certainly disturbed my mother. She didn't spend much time with me after the first eight months, but I remember her when I look in the mirror and see her red eyes looking back. She smelled of blood and metal, with a faint floral overtone, and she had little time for childish things beyond lullabies. My most distinct memory of her is her telling me not to touch the kunai she was polishing, before sitting me in her lap and letting me help. Sometimes the faint chant of _If you want them alive, remember this: knees, shoulders, elbows and wrists. If you want them dead, oh my: aim for neck, heart, gut and eye. _just naturally comes out when I'm maintaining my own tools now.

My mother's colleagues were strange people who smelled like vinegar and metal and a little like father's poisons, sometimes. Once every two weeks, a few of her friends would come over for dinner or drinks or card games. I was young, but they were unforgettable people. I sat by the door, waiting to answer it, wriggling in my not so comfortable dress- green to compliment my hair.

"Kotone, are you going to wait by the door all day?" asked my mother, who was wearing her own not so comfortable dress- a slinky, dark red number- and dangly earrings, although shoe ettiquette meant she was in house slippers, not high heels.

"Yeah!" I nodded. I hadn't spent much time around kids my age, being schooled my father at a level several years ahead of my age mates, and the idea of new people was really, really interesting.

At that point, there was a knock on the door, and I launched myself at the handle. I missed, what with the unsteady toddler walking, and mother caught me under the arms with a laugh, propping me up on her hip as she opened the door. My jaw fell as I looked from my mother to the woman standing outside- they looked almost exactly alike, with wild black hair, bright red eyes, and pale skin. The other mother wore a white and black dress, though, and was much younger- maybe fifteen or sixteen to my mother's twenty four.

"Kurenai-chan! You made it!" My mother smiled, leaning in to hug the teenager, who was looking at me curiously.

"Benifude-nee, is this my niece?" asked Kurenai, reaching out to hold me. Mother passed with a little smile.

"Yes, this is Kotone," my mother said with a nod, and Kurenai's smile widened.

"I haven't seen you since you were born, Kotone-chan!" Kurenai said to me, and I grabbed at her shoulder.

"I'm your niece?"

"Yes, so you should call me obasan, okay, Kotone-chan?" Kurenai gave me another squeeze, and I wriggled a little. I'd figured out that my mother was a Yuuhi- she was just to similar to Kurenai not to be- but I'd never realised that she and Kurenai were so closely related. I'd definitely never thought that Kurenai had an older sister.

"Yeah!"

"Oi, oi! Anko is here!" carolled a different voice from the doorway, and I wiggled around to look over Kurenai's shoulder. Sure enough, a fifteen year old Anko stood in the jamb, holding an unopened bottle of sake forward as a host gift.

"Anko, come meet my niece, Kotone-chan," Kurenai beckoned her over, and the purple haired teen joined her in awkwardly cooing over my green hair and how well I spoke.

Not long after, Ibiki-san, the newest in my mother's department of T&I, came over, and we sat down to dinner. That was the first time I met anyone I had actually seen in the manga, and it was quite a shock. As I lay in my bed that night, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe, I could do something to help. To stop all the deaths I had once read about. Maybe I could make sure that my aunt's baby would have a father to grow up with.

As soon as I could walk, my father began to teach my what was essentially the first year Academy curriculum. Stretches, calisthenics, kunai and shuriken throwing, hand seals and other little bits of physical conditioning entered my life. Stretches in the morning, before breakfast, then an hour of throwing practice before we sat down for book learning, which would continue until lunch. Then, more training, but this time framed as games- hide and sneak (a little different to the traditional hide and seek), races, card games like snap and memory matching, and people watching on errands. In the evening, my mother would come home, freshly scrubbed so she didn't track blood into the house, and my father would light up like a festival lantern. They were very much in love, my parents. They danced in the kitchen and often kissed. Together, they made dinner, and told me about poisons and building tolerance. It was a family tradition, poisoning, and I cannot remember a time when I didn't have pills to take with dinner, to slowly build my tolerance to the common poisons, and quite a few of the rarer ones. In my last life, I was often sick, but I also gave up when I was sick, spending the day in bed or watching TV. Now, I was sick, but my father was not so soft. Sick meant more slowly, sick meant more carefully, but it didn't mean stop. I was an Umikai child, after all.

"Do you know what your last name means, Ko-chan?" asked my father one morning, half way through a flashcard set. I shrugged, pulling at the hem of my oversized tee-shirt. I'd never really cared about fashion as a child, my mother was usually away, and so I was perfectly happy in my father's choice of clothes- spandex shorts for movement, and oversized tee-shirts (jumpers in winter, tank tops in summer) and I was currently wearing my favourite, which had Princess Fuun doing a jump kick on it.

"Sea something?" I guessed. Ocean was the usual reading for Umi, after all.

"Nope!" he popped the 'p', grinning, "Umi is from the kanji for 'to fester', because we are poisoners. And our Kai means to understand. So, what does Umikai mean?"

"...To understand poisons?" I guessed, and he fluffed up my hair with one big hand.

"Indeed. And Kai is also used to dispel genjutsu and break influence, so that's why you and I have pills to take today."

"To break the influence of any poison?" I asked unhappily, as he fished out the two pill bottles from the cupboard.

"Good girl. Now, take these," he passed the pills over, little brown circles and ovals and squares that he made himself in the laboratory in our cellar, along with a sippy cup full of water. I pulled a face, but took the pills, and he dry-swallowed his own, a full handful more than my four. "And now, we have one more poison left to assimilate today."

I sighed, but offered my forearm. About once every two weeks, I got a shot with dead disease in it- a vaccine, combined with weak poisons from different animals, which would make me incredibly ill for a day or two. He shook his head, and I looked for whatever he'd dipped in the contact poison I was to touch.

"No, no, this is one you ingest. In fact, it's such a weak poison that almost any human can eat it, although it's toxic to many animals," he lectured, and pulled something out of his pocket, pushing it across the table to me.

"...Chocolate?" I asked, unwrapping the bar of milk chocolate.

"Very dangerous," he said, nodding solemnly, and swung me up onto his back, startling a shriek of laughter from me. "Make sure you eat it all, Ko-chan, you need to build up a resistance."

I had my parents for the first six years of my life. Then, they died. Mother died in a prison break out, killed by an Iwanin who had lost his mind at her gentle but demanding hand. Father died only six months later. The romantic way to say it would be that he died of heart break, but it was actually depression, combined with an underranked mission, a B class that became a high A. As their inheritor, I got the house- a small, ground floor unit that would usually be considered an apartment, except for its large back garden and fenced in yard. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and two ghosts. It wasn't a fun place to live, but even with the monthly pension I drew, I didn't have enough to move. So I tended the little shrine I set up for them, learned to throw knives, and built my poison resistance. Then, at seven, I joined the Academy.

The day before my first day at the Academy, I went shopping. It sounds strange, but I still tended to wear oversized tee-shirts and spandex shorts, and combining that with my weird green hair and red eyes would make me a bully magnet. Children were cruel, and I'd had enough of that the first time I went through child hood. So I took my usual pills (now with one more pill than I had taken when my father was alive), and went to the shops. First, though, I need to do some reconnoissance. I went to a playground and hid behind a tree. Okay, that's not a great sentence to hear, knowing I was over twenty when I died. But I needed to know what the cute girls my age wore, so I could give some kind of good impression. For play, which was what I assumed the Academy would basically be, they wore dresses and shorts, or tee-shirts and shorts. Nothing difficult, which made me glad. It seemed that the ninja weirdness of style would only kick in towards the last year in the academy. That was something I could manage later. For now, my step was lighter as I headed towards the clothing store my father used to take me too. Inside, I bought a few simple dresses, some more spandex shorts, sensible sandals, and a few more oversized tee-shirts for at home.

On the actual first day, I braided back my hair, put on the black dress I bought, along with a pair of bright red spandex shorts that reached just above my knees, and black ninja sandals. I swung my little backpack over one shoulder, and nodded to myself in the mirror. I took my pills, and went to school.

"Hey."

I looked up from the seat I'd chosen, about half way between the front and back of the class.

"We don't know you. Are you new? Did you just move here?" One of the four girls stood in front of the others, arms crossed. She had deep blue hair, about jaw length, and wore a cheongsam a bit like the one Sakura wore in the first part of the series.

"Yeah," I nodded, and smiled tentatively, "I'm Umikai Kotone..."

"Your hair looks like seaweed," said the little girl, interrupting my introduction. "You better not be interested in Satoshi-kun."

"Satoshi-kun?" I blinked, looking around the class.

"Over there. He's the coolest, hottest, most awesome guy at the Academy. I'm Hoshi, by the way," said the girl, pointing at a boy surrounded by other guys. They were laughing at something the boy had said, and I guess, if you were a little girl, he would be considered handsome. He had blondish red hair and bright, leaf green eyes, and he grinned at the cluster of girls when he saw them looking at him.

"I'm not?" I said, feeling unsure.

"You're not? What's wrong with you?" one of Hoshi's friends burst out, "he already knows how to channel chakra!"

That was impressive, at our age, and I nodded.

"Stay away from him, Seaweed head!" Hoshi snapped.

Man, kids here were weird, I thought, as they walked away. When I was eight the first time, boys were icky. Here, they seemed obsessed.

Either way, the name stuck, and I was Seaweed head whenever the teacher wasn't paying attention. Even when I made friends with Hoshi, almost a year later, I was still Seaweed head, which was kind of okay because Hoshi was starting to get acne, and got the name Meteor face for her trouble.

I worked hard at school, because I was my father's daughter, and it was goddamn Ninja school. I couldn't see why you wouldn't be working hard at the opportunity to be a ninja. Maybe it was a little strange, hearing lectures on how to murder a man and taking notes on it, but social conditioning was a beautiful, terrible thing, and I had my mother and father's stories of missions to occupy me when I started to think the way I would have in my last life. I threw myself into book work, concentrating on the familiar topic of cryptography- linguistics and cryptology had been my specialty, and the return to things like Caeser's cypher and swap codes was a welcome balm to my stressed mind. I soared through cryptology and codes, and Akito-sensei smiled approvingly when I did well, and Suzume-sensei was one of my father's old colleagues, so I concentrated well in kunoichi studies. Poisons were a breeze, with my background, and genjutsu was a chance to try out the illusions I'd so admired in my mother's hands. One day, Akito-sensei pulled me aside and sat down with me after school.

"Kotone-chan, I feel you aren't being challenged enough by our curriculum."

"I am!" I promised, nodding my head. I wasn't great at social interaction, having never spent much time with children my own age before joining the Academy, and often relied on smiling and nodding to make someone agree with me.

"I'm not suggesting accelerating you, Kotone-chan," Akito-sensei said kindly, "you have quite some trouble getting along with your classmates, and I wouldn't recommend splitting what bonds you've managed to cement here. No, I wanted to suggest that you join some after school activities, perhaps. You have a lot of options. Your taijutsu is quite weak. Maybe joining a taijutsu training group would help bring your marks up?"

"I'll think about it, sensei," I promised, standing up, "but I have to go. Meteo-Hoshi is waiting for me."

I gave him another smile, but he looked unhappy as I left.

I joined plenty of clubs in my second year, but in third, I found myself signing up to tutor younger children. The training groups weren't taking up enough time, I thought, but the real reason was that I'd seen Ino and Sakura in the yard the other day, and suddenly realised that canon was approaching, and approaching fast. I wanted to meet the people I'd read so much about. The fourth day after putting down my name and specialties (codes, poisons, throwing weapons, kunoichi studies and genjutsu), I was called into the office with Akito-sensei. I was supposedly two years older than the team that would become Team Seven, and so had missed the opportunity to learn from Naruto's favourite teacher, but Akito-sensei was friendly and confident and very handsome, even with the long scar that demonstrated how important proper decapitation methods were.

"Kotone-chan, it says here you signed up for tutoring after school?"

"Yes, sensei. I like teaching, and I could use a little pocket money," I said with a firm nod, and he smiled at me. I was high in the class rankings, with only two other doing better than me, and had neat writing in all my assignments. Not just that, but I usually volunteered for extra-curriculars, including the voluntary genjutsu course, extra kunoichi classes, a taijutsu sparring group lead by a determined second year Rock Lee, and even the two hour aiming classes that Hanozawa-sensei held twice a week. The little house I called home was empty and lonely, after all, and extra work, when that extra work was about becoming a ninja, was far more appealing than sitting on my own thinking about all the people I missed. All in all, to Akito-sensei, I was a dedicated, friendly, if slightly arrogant, little girl, and I'd somehow finangled my way into his affections.

"Well, we have a few different students in the year below who are in need of a little bit of help," Akito-sensei explained, laying out four profiles, each with a picture attached, "Personally, I feel like you and Shimejiko-chan would get on very well," he tapped a file with a nervous looking brunette on the front, and I bit my lip. I could see Sakura's file on the table- she was thin and bright eyed, with long pink hair, and she wore the red dress from the first part of the series- and I stopped myself from picking it up immediately with quite some effort, instead skipping across a few others, and made an inquisitive noise.

"Shijemiko-chan is having some serious problems in flower codes and has some other cryptographic issues. She's just far too straight forward to encode her own missives, and has some problems figuring out how others encode their own messages," Akito-sensei said, and I picked up Sakura's file, flicking through it casually.

She had asked for assistance in kunoichi studies, body conditioning, and, in a different, scrawled hand, aiming techniques, taijutsu, and hand seal speed.

"Sensei, I feel like I wouldn't be helping myself very much by taking her as a student," I said, and pushed Sakura's file towards him, "where as... Haruno-san... Needs help in two of my specialities, and the other areas are ones where training together would help us both."

I offered him the pleasant smile I'd spent so long practicing, and he picked up Sakura's file, looking it over.

"Hm. Well, it is your choice, and I can understand your reasoning, Kotone-chan. If you got to Umino-sensei's class today at the end of lessons, he'll introduce you to Sakura-chan, and you can begin to organise a training schedule."

I made sure not to let my smile widen too much, and went back to lunch. As usual, I sat under the big flowering tulip tree in the yard, picking at my not-so-skillfully made bento. What would Sakura be like? Mean or friendly, fake or honest? I had no answer for my questions, only able to bring up her actions in the manga- cruel, but not purposefully so. A little sheltered, a little childish, but smart as a whip and willing to work hard if she had the right motivation.

I hoped she would have the right motivation, packing up my lunch, and dwelled on the subject throughout Akito-sensei's tactics lecture, taking bad notes and doodling in the margins, and eventually, the bell rang. My bag was packed in seconds, and I bolted for the door, running for Iruka's classroom.

The first years weren't quite finished yet- they had an extra ten minutes instruction, but I found that both Satoshi and I were waiting by the door.

"Tutoring?" I asked, slightly flushed, and he nodded. Satoshi had grown up just as handsome as Hoshi and her friends had thought he would, with short cut rose-gold hair and his friendly green eyes now hidden behind reading glasses.

"Some kid called Aburame Shino," he said, reading smudged kanji from the back of his hand, "you?"

"Haruno Sakura."

"Good luck," Satoshi said, watching Iruka finish up his lecture and clap to catch the students' attention.

"You too," I replied, feeling awkward, and Iruka gestured us in as the kids began to pack up.

"Good afternoon. You're from the tutoring program, right? Manamura-sensei told me to expect you."

We nodded, and Iruka gestured to Sakura and Shino to come to the front of the class as the other students filed out. I offered tentative smiles to the ones I recognised, which was admittedly not very many, and Iruka coughed to catch my attention.

"Sakura, this is Umikai Kotone, a third year student who has kindly offered to tutor you."

We bowed to each other, and Iruka waved us toward the door. Taking the hint, I headed to the tulip tree again, and Sakura followed me.

"I am Umikai Kotone," I said, "Please, call me Kotone. I am a poison and illusion specialist, although I also am quite good at throwing weapons. I dislike people who lie without reason, cheater, and when I hurt myself in hand to hand taiutsu. I like poisons, flower arranging, dancing, and winning."

I looked at Sakura expectantly. She was eight, to my ten, and looked very small in my eyes. I'd always thought, reading the series, that Sakura really needed some guidance. Kakashi was busy being self pitying and helping Sasuke, and she couldn't see Naruto as a friend due to his persistent attempts at Nice Guy-ing his way into a date early on in the series. Sasuke wasn't even worth mentioning, to be honest. But maybe I could do...something.

"Haruno Sakura. You can call me Sakura, Kotone-sempai. I...am good at tactics and book learning. I dislike bullies and this one boy in my class... I like..." she flushed red, darting a look towards the gates, where Sasuke was being picked up by his parents. "ano..."

"You like a boy?" I scrunched my nose a little, "Anything else?"

"Ano...I guess. I like cooking? And I like getting a perfect mark on my tests." She nodded decisively, and I smiled.

"Well, according to your profile, you need help in body conditioning, throwing, and kunoichi studies?"

She nodded again.

"Well, we'll meet up here tomorrow at four, and start on body conditioning, so wear your most comfortable work out clothes, okay?"

"Yes, Kotone-sempai!" Sakura said, saluting a little bit.

"Before you know it," I assure her, "You won't just be getting a perfect mark on your tests, but on every assessment!"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you to the people who reviewed, alerted, or favourited this story. I hope you continue to enjoy it. Warning, in this chapter Kotone stands on her feminist soap box. As she is loosely based off me, she has a lot of feelings about girls being just as good as boys. Anyway, it's a good way to get Sakura invested in her training.

Without further ado, the chapter

"Alright, Sakura-chan, let's start with flower language," I said, falling into the start of my stretching routine, leaning backwards to grasp my ankles with my hands.

"Am I supposed to be stretching too?" asked the girl, and I grinned at her from between my ankles.

"Do you have a stretching routine?"

"The Academy one, I guess," Sakura admitted, toeing off her sandals and joining me on the grass.

"That's a good base, but we'll add a few extra stretches at the end. For now, just start that one," I decided, nodding. She nodded back, and sat down, leaning her forehead to the ground. "Now, let's work on flower language."

"Yes, Kotone-senpai!"

Shinobi flower language was not precisely the same as the romantic kind. Instead, it focussed on creating double meanings in bouquets that only the contact would be able to read as a code, while still making sense if a civilian read it. As such, every flower had two or more meanings, with extra information created by the pruning of its leaves and stem, its colour, and its position in the bouquet.

"Sakura-chan!" I called out, reversing my stance so I was leant over, staring back through my ankles. "You receive a bouquet from your contact, chuunin Uchiha! It is a bouquet of Bittersweet, red Carnations, white Camelias, and a white Lily! It is tied with a blue and white ribbon. What is he saying?"

Sakura bit her lip, following my example as I switched to the next stretch, splits.

"Uh, in civilian flower language, It's heavenly to be with me, he thinks I'm adorable, and..." she blushed, shaking her head, "his heart aches for me."

"And in shinobi?" She had forgotten the bittersweet, which essentially meant 'truth'; the bouquet said that the chuunin was telling the truth, that Sakura was sweet and adorable, and he ached for her company. Quite a risque bouquet, as they went, but not out of the ordinary.

"Ah... The lily stands for an attack, white means from Kumonin. Red carnations symbolise the number of enemy nin. The camelias symbolise when they are expected to attack, that they're white means that the date should be counted in weeks from the date of reception. The bittersweet tells me that they are planning to attack a site of importance to...trade?" Sakura frowned, "and the blue and white ribbon shows that he will not be able to help me in dealing with the threat."

"Great job," I said, "now, another bouquet, this one from..." I looked around the yard, trying to think of a name, "Mori-chuunin. He sends you a small spray of striped yellow and purple carnations, edged with purple hyacinth, gladiolus and geranium. It's got a yellow ribbon with white lace. Go!" I clapped, and Sakura grinned at me as she slid into the next stretch in the Academy routine. I stood and went over to assist her, putting a little extra weight on her shoulders as she pushed forward.

"In civilian, he has said that I'm capricious, and he cannot be with me. He's sorry, but he's sincere in his rejection. He thinks the idea of a relationship between us is stupid."

"What a cruel man," I said, and she giggled.

"In shinobi language, he has found the mission goal, but has run into trouble- that's the carnations. The hyacinth is an appeal to a more senior shinobi for advice, and the gladiolus tells me that his problem is to do with stealth. The geranium lets me know that it's safe to contact him. The yellow ribbon symbolises his hiding place- the lace tells me that he is hiding in a civilian house."

"I don't know why you wanted a tutor," I said, helping her up from the ground and showing her the form of the new stretches I wanted to add to her routine. "You're clearly very good at flower language."

"Ano... I'm not as good as my rival," Sakura said with a glare, clenching her fists, "Ino-pig works at her family's flower shop! She's got a natural edge. But I'm way smarter than her, and if I work hard, I'll surpass her, and then I'll win Sasuke-kun's heart!"

I decided to leave the bit about Sasuke behind. My own class had enough trouble with their heart throb, I didn't want to poke at Sakura's crush until I had known her for a little longer. "Well, if you're willing to work hard, I'm sure you can do whatever you like. Especially with me as a tutor." I grinned, looking absently at my nails, "I'm pretty awesome. With me teaching you, you should be at least half my amount of awesome."

"Is that a lot?" Sakura asked dryly, and I smirked.

"Sakura-chan, that's more than double the amount of awesome that anyone else in this town has."

"You better not be lying, senpai..." Sakura said, breathing slightly heavily as she stood. The stretches had taken the better part of an hour, and I'd been quizzing her about flower language and the ways to communicate more and more difficult problems in bouquets for the whole time.

"Ah, now, this you should know," I smiled, eyes closing, as we headed towards the shuriken range, "I lie constantly. All good shinobi do."

"You're not a shinobi, though!" Sakura said, jogging to keep up with my longer stride. The pink haired girl only came up to about my shoulder, my height seemed to have carried over from my last life, so I was expecting to hit six feet by the time I graduated the Academy. "You're not even a kunoichi yet. You're still an Academy student!"

"Ah, but mark this," I lifted one finger, trying to look wise.

"Yes, sensei," she mumbled, sounding sarcastic.

"First of all, all kunoichi are shinobi. Just because we're girls, we can't let the boys think they're better than us. We're all ninja, and you and I, Sakura-chan, we have the advantage!"

"How? We're just girls! All the boys are way better at taijutsu than the girls. Boys are just tougher than girls," Sakura said, and I turned to glare at her.

"Sakura-chan, who's the tallest person in your class?"

"Mm... Probably Ami-chan."

"Is she the strongest?" Sakura crinkled her nose, but eventually nodded, "And who has the best test results?"

"Me."

"So are the boys really the best in the class?" I asked again, taking down four braces of shuriken from the practice cupboard and passing two to Sakura. I strapped my two braces to my thighs, high enough that the skirt of my dress would hide all but the access catch of the holsters.

"Sasuke-kun is the top at taijutsu," Sakura objected.

"Sasuke-kun," I said dryly, marking off an aisle of the range, "has the advantage of clan training, unlike many of your class. And I bet that Ami-chan likes Sasuke-kun, am I right?"

"Everyone likes Sasuke-kun!" Sakura said, strapping on her own braces on her hip, over her qipao.

"Then I bet Ami-chan doesn't want to beat Sasuke-kun in case he doesn't like her anymore."

Sakura frowned, thinking heavily as I finished pacing off the aisle we'd claimed.

"Now, personally," I said, "I hate people who pretend to be weaker than they are just to impress someone. Subterfuge has its place, but that place is in the field." I turned to look her in the eyes, "In the Academy, you're here to learn. You have to make the most of that."

I'd learned that lesson the hard way, I mused, letting Sakura take her time thinking about my argument. I'd flaked off in high school to hang out with people I'd thought were my friends, pretending I wasn't smart so they wouldn't think I was a nerd. My final results (and a painful conversation with my parents) had pointed out that a few transitory friendships weren't worth my future.

"So...what's our advantage, senpai?"

"Oh, Sakura-chan. We're girls," I grinned, moving back to stand next to her, "people expect us to be nice, and polite, and demure. They think we're weak. It's dumb, but they think that girls aren't as strong as boys. They use dumb reasons like 'evolution', but it's bullshit."

"Evolution is bullshit?" Sakura looked at me like I was deranged.

"No. The idea that boys are better at things because of evolution is bullshit. Girls grow up before boys do. It's why you're taller than most of the boys in your class. We have until we're about fifteen, and then they get their growth spurt. You should use every edge you have, Sakura-chan. You want to be a shinobi, right?"

"A kunoichi, yeah."

I shook my head, beginning to throw shuriken at the target, "No. You need to be a shinobi first. You know how we have kunoichi classes, and boys get extra taijutsu training?"

"Yeah! I like it, but there's this tomboy, Atsuki-chan, who always complains."

"Well, she's an idiot," I said severely. My throat felt a little dry. I hadn't talked this much in quite a while. Despite my very outspoken tendencies, my only real social relationship was with Meteor-face, and that was more friendly enemity than actual friendship. I spent more time arguing with teachers than talking with my peers. "You can make up taijutsu training outside school. We're going to make up those two hours the boys get, actually. But specialised classes? Those aren't so easy to do on your own. I can throw shuriken at this stump for hours, and I'll improve. I can't just practice elaborate tea ceremony at home, and I certainly can't ask questions about how to fake an Iwa accent, or what I need to know to play a doting wife on a mission."

"I...guess I understand. Like trying to catch up on one of Iruka-sensei's lectures when I've been sick. It's a lot harder to understand without hearing the actual thing, even if I read someone's notes," Sakura said, pulling a shuriken from her brace and tossing it at the target.

"Exactly! So we girls actually have more training than the boys. We have an advantage, Sakura-chan. It's just up to us to take that advantage, and prove those idiots who say girls aren't as good as boys are wrong! I want you to not just be the top kunoichi in your year, but the top rookie."

I looked over, and Sakura smiled back shyly.

"You think I can beat Sasuke-kun?"

"Pfft. Sasuke-kun. I think you can beat anyone you put your mind to." I said, nodding. I had already seen Sakura become Tsunade's apprentice, become the strongest medicnin of her generation. If she'd actually buckled down and worked, that much earlier?

If I had my way, when the manga of this universe came out, it would be called _Sakura. _

"I won't let you down! What do I have to do, senpai?"

"Well, first of all, isn't it hard to draw from your brace with it there?" I asked, and Sakura nodded, looking down at the hip mounted holster.

"But I can't put it on my leg like you, it doesn't work there."

I bit my lip, looking her up and down. After a few seconds examination, she began to squirm, and I noticed some blue-ish black bruises on her forearms.

"I got it!" I grinned, unbuckling her braces and moving them to her forearms to cover the bruises, "This way, you have some armour, and you can cover up your braces with arm warmers or something, and nobody will know until you draw on them!"

"Cool!" Sakura grinned back at me, then frowned, "But now I need to change my clothes... I mean, if that doesn't seem too girly to you."

"Sakura-chan, just because people think being girly is being weak, it doesn't mean that it is," I confided, showing her the new draw stance she needed to practice, "make up and shopping, that's fun!"

"It is, isn't it?" she smiled, and three shuriken hit the centre mass of the target.

"I think we're going to have a lot of fun together, Sakura-chan."

"I think so too, senpai!"

Once Sakura was a little more at ease with the new draw stance, we moved onto taijutsu practice, slow kata and a spar that left us both tired and sweaty.

"What now, senpai?"

"Now," I said, breathing heavily as I brushed grass off my butt, "we go shower, get some tea, and some sweets. Maybe go shopping for your arm warmers."

"We're done with training?" Sakura was rather pink in the face, not quite used to this level of activity, and when I nodded, she whooped, throwing her hands up as she jumped to her feet.

A few seconds later, I had to put my arm around her waist to stop her falling over onto the grass again.

"I'll walk you home, and then I'll meet you at Cha-Dango in half an hour?" I asked, naming a popular tea house that my schoolmates often spent time at.

"Sure. Thanks, senpai."

Sakura didn't live far from the Academy, in a neat, green painted row house with pretty maple and cherry trees in the front garden. I rang the doorbell, and was greeted by an older teen with the same pale pink hair Sakura sported.

"Hey, imouto. Who's this?" he asked Sakura, nodding at me.

"Momiji-nii! This is Umikai Kotone-senpai, my tutor." she detached herself from me, and staggered into the house, dropping her sandals haphazardly in the genkan as she headed for the stairs, "Senpai, I'll see you soon!"

"Okay, Sakura-chan!" I called after her with a wave, "It was nice to meet you, Momiji-san, but I have to go wash up so I can meet your sister."

"Mm," he eyed me, clearly trying to judge if I was worthy of hanging out with his baby sister, "well, it was nice to meet you, Umikai-san."

"Ah, Kotone is fine," I said with a wave of dismissal, and jogged off down the garden path.

I had just enough time to shower and get ready before running off to Cha-Dango, where Sakura was waiting, dressed in a pale yellow sundress, her long hair in a neat braid that looked very similar to my normal Academy hairstyle.

"Wow, senpai, you look so different!" she said with another smile, and I touched my loose hair with a self conscious hand. "I like it," she added reassuringly. I wore a haori type top in grey with green mountain stripes, with the Umikai symbol embroidered on the back, along with a grey tank top and dark blue denim shorts.

"I'll go get tea- what do you drink?"

"Ah, I like morning tea," she said, "but whatever you get is fine."

I nodded and headed up to the counter, ordering a cup of lychee tea as well. When I returned with the drinks, balancing a plate of anko dango, Sakura had a puzzled look on her face.

"What is it, Sakura-chan?"

"Well, Kotone-senpai, when you were talking about girls being just as good as boys, you said 'for one'. What was your other point?"

"...I had another point?" I blinked, taking a sip of my tea, and Sakura giggled.


End file.
